Semi-weekly south Kentuckian. [volume] (Hopkinsville, Ky.) 1883-1889, 1887-09-06
THE HUMAN APPETITE.
Strange Kinds of Food Used in Various
Parts of the Globe.

Strange Kinds of Food Used In various
Parts of the Globe.
Cuttle-fishes, in one form or another
are eaten the world round, In Naples
you can buy their flesh any day in the
markets, and it is prepared with vine
gar and spices. The Indians of British
America think themselves in luck when
they capture big octopus. They
spear him with wooden lance and
drag him dexlerously from among the
rocks, taking great precautions lest he
should upset the canoe before he is
done for" If it is not convenient to
cook him they do not hesitate to cut
pieces from the Shiny mass and devour
them raw. They like better, however,
to boil the "man-sucker," and their
only method of cooking in the old
days was to put it into clay-chinked
basket, partly filled with heated
stones, which soon brought the water
to a boiling point. The Celestials make
the most extensive use of the cuttle-
fish, having both octopods and squids
in great abundance. You can see in
all Chinese markets piles of sun-dried
squids split open, flattened out and
looking like small white Goldfish. with
long stiffened fringes at the broad end,
representing all that remains of the
circle of arms about the head. Dried
squids will keep in good condition for
many years; and when they are boiled,
mixed with herbs, and pleasantly sea-
soned they make a capital soup or pud-
ding, the taste of which will mildly
suggest lobster broth.
The miserable Indians of Utah and the
Colorado desert and tho bushmen Of
Africa, who live in hot, dry, open
region. gather grasshoppers, crickets
and some sorts of beetles, and make a
meal of their dried bodies. which they
crush and mix into sort Of paste with
berries or seeds, or else they devour
the insects raw As for locusts, they
are called the national dish" of the
Zambesi region in South Africa; and
are on the bill-of-fare of such half-civ.
ilized people rs the Arabians, Persians
and Egyptians, while their young were
considered a dainty by the Romans.
The axlot forms the principal food OF
the Mexican peasantry on the plateaus
during early summer. 1t is q larger
sort of those water-i:zards (Which ere
not real lizards) known in the middle
parts of the United States as mud-pup-
pies and hell-benders. The Spanish
conquerors of MeJiso adopted this dis
gusting-looking reptile as food from
the Aztecs; but in place of the plain
cooking followed by the Indians they
preferred to soak it in vinegar and sea-
son it with pepper and cloves.
The Chinese and Burmese are said to
eat lizards, but here they are by no
means alone, for dwellers IN dry, pow
erty-stricken regions in all parts of the
globe resort to that food, and even to
serpents. The Apaches, Plh-Utes and
other red skin natives of the arid table,
lands of Southern Utah, Arizona and
California regard their forked sticks
and gaffs for catching lizards MS being
the most needful of human tools.
Earth is swallowed by many de-
PRAYED savages, Sometimes it is a
greasy clay, filled with vegetable par
ticles; often it is gritty soil, containing
no nutriment whatever 1t is not al
ways wild men who have acquired the
habit, nor does it always ruin tho
health.
On the Columbia river fern flour was
formerly much used. while the Cana
dian Indians are very fond of the wild
rice which grows so abundantly along
the great lakes, and of the seeds of the
lotus and water-lily which sproul
among its reedy stems.
The natives of Central America cook
their great tree-lizard, the iguana,
sometimes making pit in the ground
and covering it with a fire. = Chicago
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